Covid-19: Still not enough vaccines for all South Africans

With acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane announcing vaccinations yesterday would begin for those from 50 years old on 15 July, with registration opening on 1 July, simply throwing opening the doors to everyone was not an option at this stage.

“We would love to open vaccinations for everyone,” Kubayi-Ngubane told Saturday Citizen.

“If we open registrations for everyone, there is an expectation [from people] that in the next week or two, ‘I must be called’.” The other problem was the availability of supply.

“In terms of supply, we are working per quarter so there is a particular number of vaccines we are given per quarter, and our scheduling of categories is based on supply,” said Kubayi-Ngubane.

“So that’s why we couldn’t even open for those from 40 years old, we opened for the 50 to 60 age group based on the number of medicines received.”

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Kubayi-Ngubane noted Pfizer had delivered nearly 4.5 million doses in the second quarter.

“They committed just over 15.5 million doses in quarter three, of which we are expecting nearly 2.1 million doses in July,” Kubayi-Ngubane said.

“Johnson and Johnson have so far delivered 500 000 early access doses used for Sisonke, 300 000 market doses last week and 1.2 million doses landed last night.”

Kubayi-Ngubane said the 1.2 million doses had to be used by 11 August.

“We are awaiting for delivery of 500 000 doses, these expire later than the previous doses mentioned, this then makes up the two million to replace those lost to the contamination incident.”

On Wednesday, Gauteng Provincial Coronavirus Command Council advisor Prof Bruce Mellado noted if numbers continued to climb, it meant the infection rates may be out of control and tighter measures would be needed.

The National Coronavirus Command Council is only scheduled to meet on Tuesday, government spokesperson Phumla Williams announced yesterday.

This means, at this stage, President Cyril Ramaphosa is only likely to address the nation a few days afterwards.

As the country continued to reel under the third wave of infections, hundreds of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supporters took to Pretoria’s streets to demand more vaccines from government in a potential super-spreader event outside the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) offices yesterday.

While the march was peaceful, police spokesperson Colonel Brenda Muridili said they would compile a report to determine what charges would be instituted against the convener of the march “since there were clearly more than the required number of people participating”.

Reading from the memorandum to be handed to Sahpra, EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu took Sahpra to task for not approving the Chinese Sinovac and the Russian Sputnik V vaccines, and relying on Johnson and Johnson and the Pfizer vaccines.

“Vaccines are currently our only scientific solutions and Sahpra must not stand on the way of approving and authorising vaccines that will save the lives of our people,” said Shivambu.

Sahpra only received documentation for the Sinopharm vaccine developed by the China National Pharmaceutical Group on Tuesday.

amandaw@citizen.co.za